Also I found out that my department's two secretaries are Trump supporters so they're officially dead to me.
I spent yesterday grieving, if you could call it that, and today I'm back on my feet.
I'm angry with my own profession; we all were so convinced of things going the other way that perhaps we were blinded by the truth and the fickleness of human psychology.
Maybe that is also contributing to the state of shock I feel; we were all convinced, and we were all wrong.
I'm ashamed of white women in particular; we failed our sisters of color by voting in large margins for such an awful misogynist. Then again, most of these particular white women probably come from older generations so I shouldn't be terribly surprised. Still though, it is shameful.
There is nothing more I could have done, I know, but I still wish I could have done something more. The comfort I have in all of this is that my state went blue, and my state's biggest city is one of many that are protesting right now. If I could, I would be with them.
Maybe I should head down one day, and stop my own free riding.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
I am in a state of shock right now.
Truly, I did not want to believe that America would show itself to be as racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, etc., as it has today. I truly believed the fact that we would have our first female president - a woman who has dedicated her life to politics and who is more qualified for the position than anyone else who sought the position for this particular cycle - and show that we have come a long way and are progressing as a nation.
I tried to tell myself, during those times where I feared the worst, that the president doesn't have nearly as much power as people think. While that is still 100% accurate, I wonder how a unified Republican government will actually respect the constraints of the office.
When one of my first fears is "shit, I signed a very public document with other political scientists that condemned him and the idea of his presidency, is something going to happen to me," I'm not sure if that is paranoia or if that is a legitimate fear due to his claiming that he will jail his political opponent and due to the fact that his supporters all want him to do just that.
I am a hypocrite; I constantly complain about the existence of the filibuster in the Senate and yet right now I am more than thankful that it exists, and I hope that the Democrats use it as much as the Republicans have in the past few years. I hope they block everything that could possibly hurt people like me, people like my friends, people who are already oppressed, and more. I want the gloves to come off, and for them to use every institution they possibly can in order to prevent as many terrible pieces of legislation as possible from coming into law.
So many people voted for this man, and that frightens me greatly. A man who has openly talked about sexually assaulting women, who has been accused of doing just that by more than a few women, who talks about women as sexual objects who exist only to please men with their appearance...has defeated the first and most qualified female candidate that we ever could have hoped for at this time. It is tragically poetic, in a weird sense. That such a misogynist could be elected over a woman who is far more qualified shouldn't be surprising...we women face that bullshit every single day. Still though, it is tragic - people would rather have that man...that screaming, lying, racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic garbage mess of a human being as their commander-in-chief than have a woman in the oval office.
Sure, I could claim that partisan identification is strong, and that is partially what this election shows. And it does show that, in its own way. But is also sends a strong message to so many marginalized groups: that people hate us.
I know people will claim that Clinton did not lose because she is a woman, and I will scoff at them. The amount of hatred and vitriol that has been lobbied at her for things that, let's be real, were actually not a huge deal (especially in comparison to the alternative) can all (or at least mostly) be boiled down to her gender. Whether overtly or covertly, sexism was at the forefront of this election and called it against her.
To those who voted third party, particularly in swing states, your ideological purity has come at a great price, and I do partially blame you for this outcome. It must be nice to sit there and claim you "voted your conscious" while millions of Americans all across the country are terrified of what the future holds now.
The amount of support that this person and this platform has generated sickens me. People will claim that "well at least I didn't vote for Clinton because she is [insert generic or sexist insult here]," but you fail to understand that you vote for a platform. You vote for policy. And you just gave a mandate to the Republican government that you want the sexist, xenophobic, racist, homophobic, etc., policies that they have been expressing. Voting third party is nonsense in our system. Then again, we focus too much on the individual candidates and not on their policy platforms, so I suppose it isn't surprising that people decided to vote third party even though their policy ideals are closer to Clinton than the alternative.
I have already seen people claim that "if Bernie was the nominee this wouldn't have happened." Maybe. You don't know that, and we cannot know for sure. But the fact that people are lying back on that rather than saying "if America wasn't so disgustingly sexist this wouldn't have happened" makes me somewhat sad. It will fuel more hatred of Clinton, because it reads "despite all the garbage that has been piled on you, largely for no reason (mostly sexism), we blame you for this loss." Plus I do find it interesting that those people fall back on claiming, basically, that if she were a man she would have won.
You can sit there and claim that it is about their positions and that Bernie "isn't corrupt" etc., but that is all ignoring the fact that her ideological position is basically the same as his. That is ignoring the fact that her "corruption" has mostly been blown out of the water by people who legitimately hate the fact that she is a powerful woman and they did not want to see a woman in charge of the United States.
Trump scares me. The Republican party platform scares me. But even more than both of those things is the fact that such a man and such a platform have significant support. We can no longer claim that it is only a minority of people who are so openly sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, etc., when this was the result of our election. No, those people exist and have given enormous political power and political legitimacy to those very ideas.
As an lgbt woman, basically, this election just reminded me that people hate me. They hate me for who I am, and desire policy that will reduce my rights. And they reminded me that people hate my friends who are people of color.
People hate us. Not just a small amount of people, too.
I wish I could end this on some sort of positive note, but I cannot find the words to show any sort of optimism because of how heavy my heart feels at the moment. All I can say is this: to all of you who are scared right now...all of you women, all of you in the lgbt community, all of you people of color, all of you of non-Christian religions, and more...I am with you, and I love you. And I know one person saying that means little right now, but I hope that we can all at least come together to help each other during this time.
Truly, I did not want to believe that America would show itself to be as racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, etc., as it has today. I truly believed the fact that we would have our first female president - a woman who has dedicated her life to politics and who is more qualified for the position than anyone else who sought the position for this particular cycle - and show that we have come a long way and are progressing as a nation.
I tried to tell myself, during those times where I feared the worst, that the president doesn't have nearly as much power as people think. While that is still 100% accurate, I wonder how a unified Republican government will actually respect the constraints of the office.
When one of my first fears is "shit, I signed a very public document with other political scientists that condemned him and the idea of his presidency, is something going to happen to me," I'm not sure if that is paranoia or if that is a legitimate fear due to his claiming that he will jail his political opponent and due to the fact that his supporters all want him to do just that.
I am a hypocrite; I constantly complain about the existence of the filibuster in the Senate and yet right now I am more than thankful that it exists, and I hope that the Democrats use it as much as the Republicans have in the past few years. I hope they block everything that could possibly hurt people like me, people like my friends, people who are already oppressed, and more. I want the gloves to come off, and for them to use every institution they possibly can in order to prevent as many terrible pieces of legislation as possible from coming into law.
So many people voted for this man, and that frightens me greatly. A man who has openly talked about sexually assaulting women, who has been accused of doing just that by more than a few women, who talks about women as sexual objects who exist only to please men with their appearance...has defeated the first and most qualified female candidate that we ever could have hoped for at this time. It is tragically poetic, in a weird sense. That such a misogynist could be elected over a woman who is far more qualified shouldn't be surprising...we women face that bullshit every single day. Still though, it is tragic - people would rather have that man...that screaming, lying, racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic garbage mess of a human being as their commander-in-chief than have a woman in the oval office.
Sure, I could claim that partisan identification is strong, and that is partially what this election shows. And it does show that, in its own way. But is also sends a strong message to so many marginalized groups: that people hate us.
I know people will claim that Clinton did not lose because she is a woman, and I will scoff at them. The amount of hatred and vitriol that has been lobbied at her for things that, let's be real, were actually not a huge deal (especially in comparison to the alternative) can all (or at least mostly) be boiled down to her gender. Whether overtly or covertly, sexism was at the forefront of this election and called it against her.
To those who voted third party, particularly in swing states, your ideological purity has come at a great price, and I do partially blame you for this outcome. It must be nice to sit there and claim you "voted your conscious" while millions of Americans all across the country are terrified of what the future holds now.
The amount of support that this person and this platform has generated sickens me. People will claim that "well at least I didn't vote for Clinton because she is [insert generic or sexist insult here]," but you fail to understand that you vote for a platform. You vote for policy. And you just gave a mandate to the Republican government that you want the sexist, xenophobic, racist, homophobic, etc., policies that they have been expressing. Voting third party is nonsense in our system. Then again, we focus too much on the individual candidates and not on their policy platforms, so I suppose it isn't surprising that people decided to vote third party even though their policy ideals are closer to Clinton than the alternative.
I have already seen people claim that "if Bernie was the nominee this wouldn't have happened." Maybe. You don't know that, and we cannot know for sure. But the fact that people are lying back on that rather than saying "if America wasn't so disgustingly sexist this wouldn't have happened" makes me somewhat sad. It will fuel more hatred of Clinton, because it reads "despite all the garbage that has been piled on you, largely for no reason (mostly sexism), we blame you for this loss." Plus I do find it interesting that those people fall back on claiming, basically, that if she were a man she would have won.
You can sit there and claim that it is about their positions and that Bernie "isn't corrupt" etc., but that is all ignoring the fact that her ideological position is basically the same as his. That is ignoring the fact that her "corruption" has mostly been blown out of the water by people who legitimately hate the fact that she is a powerful woman and they did not want to see a woman in charge of the United States.
Trump scares me. The Republican party platform scares me. But even more than both of those things is the fact that such a man and such a platform have significant support. We can no longer claim that it is only a minority of people who are so openly sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, etc., when this was the result of our election. No, those people exist and have given enormous political power and political legitimacy to those very ideas.
As an lgbt woman, basically, this election just reminded me that people hate me. They hate me for who I am, and desire policy that will reduce my rights. And they reminded me that people hate my friends who are people of color.
People hate us. Not just a small amount of people, too.
I wish I could end this on some sort of positive note, but I cannot find the words to show any sort of optimism because of how heavy my heart feels at the moment. All I can say is this: to all of you who are scared right now...all of you women, all of you in the lgbt community, all of you people of color, all of you of non-Christian religions, and more...I am with you, and I love you. And I know one person saying that means little right now, but I hope that we can all at least come together to help each other during this time.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
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